BloodlustBundle

by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor

  Desiree’s eyes closed and her head hung forward as if she were defeated. “The murders…the innocent girls…”

  “And more,” I said without giving her the specifics of the homeless victims. “What do you know, Desiree? You need to cooperate.”

  She said something low and passionate in French, then told me, “This never changes, no matter where I seek shelter.”

  “Are you saying you’re the murderer?”

  “No! I do not kill!”

  Odd the way she stated her denial. A worm of discomfort crawled up my spine. “I saw you and the blonde last night, Desiree. I know what you did to her.”

  “Ah, so you were under the bed. Did you enjoy watching?”

  “I was disgusted.”

  She dropped her gaze. “I try not to feed—sometimes I think to simply fade away—but survival instincts are strong.” She said again, “But I do not kill.”

  Which reminded me of Jake’s assurance about vampires, how they normally didn’t kill their sources of food, but instead used them as blood donors. I tried to swallow the explanation, but it stuck in my throat.

  “Start from the beginning,” I suggested.

  “Not relevant. You were not even alive when I was made.”

  Jaw clenching at the last, I said, “Try me.”

  “You know what I am. I’ve been this way for so long that I do not remember the other. When I was like you.”

  The bar owner was intimating that she was a vampire. So was everyone crazy but me?

  “What are you now?” I asked.

  “A woman who has nothing to live for. I did once, long ago. His name was Charles, and he didn’t care what I was.”

  Desiree moved around the room, and as she spoke of her former lover, she glowed with beauty. Her eyes glowed also, for just a moment.

  And then the light went out.

  “Charles would have let me bleed him to survive, but I wouldn’t use him that way. It would have changed him. And I loved him too much to let him see me like that.”

  Caught by the passion in her tone, I was moved. And I thought about Jake. Could I ever feel that way about him? Would I get the chance to find out?

  “My master couldn’t tolerate my obsession for a human. Francois drained Charles’s blood and killed him. First I wept until there was nothing left in me but the thirst for revenge. And then I returned the favor.”

  “You drained Francois’s blood?”

  Laughing, Desiree stopped in front of me. “That wouldn’t have destroyed him. I cut out his heart.”

  “You realize you just admitted to a crime.”

  “I killed no one. Francois was undead. I merely destroyed his remains. Do you think to see that I am punished, sister-to-Silke? Nothing is worse than existing as I have all these years. When Charles died, I had made a vow never to drink human blood again, but I am too weak….”

  “You expect me to believe you’re a real vampire.”

  “I expect nothing of anyone but the worst, including myself. When the urge gets overwhelming, I do what I need to.” Again, she said, “I do not kill,” as if that would somehow excuse her from the things she did do that she hated so much.

  Like Jake’s mother…

  Not wanting to see her as some victim, I shook away the pity that threatened me. “Who does kill, Desiree?” I was certain she knew. “Elvin Mowry? Hung Chung?”

  “I can’t tell you anything more.”

  Desiree turned away from me, and this time I grabbed her wrist so she couldn’t leave. She snarled and struck out with such surprising quickness and strength that I went flying. My shoulder hit the gargoyle and when I landed on the floor, it was teetering on its pedestal and grinning down at me.

  I scrambled to my feet away from it.

  “The one I’m looking for does kill, Desiree. You know that. LaTonya, Thora, Raven…maybe others. He needs to be stopped.”

  “I cannot help.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “He’s far older than I…far more powerful.”

  He. Despite the fact that I’d had to consider Desiree a suspect, I’d been pretty sure the murderer was a man.

  “I cannot help you. He will sense me coming and will vanish. You’ll have to locate his lair yourself.”

  “His lair?”

  But before the words were out of my mouth, Desiree had vanished into thin air. “Desiree?”

  There was no answer. I rubbed my tired eyes, but there was no denying the fact that Desiree had vanished before me, just as Vampyres among Us said vampires could. If I believed in vampires.

  I was beginning to wonder how I could not.

  I searched the rest of the house for Desiree or signs of my sister and found neither of them. Desiree was just gone. But she had mentioned a lair before doing her bizarre disappearing act. The same lair Sheena had heard about from Mowry?

  Those tunnels were extensive and my first venture into them had been a bust. I needed help…lots of it. Especially since I was starting to feel a little crazy myself.

  As I drove off toward Lake Street, I tried Jake’s number and got his voice mail again. I didn’t bother to leave a message this time.

  After parking directly in front of the boarded-up meat market, I got the duffel bag out of the trunk. Fear held me in its clammy palm at the thought of going back in the labyrinth alone.

  This was Silke’s life and maybe my life, and whatever I found or didn’t find, I had to chance being wrong. But first I would try to get help. I called Area 4 and got Norelli.

  “Norelli. I need backup and now. I got a lead…and the murderer has my sister.”

  “You know that how?”

  “I just know it. Trust me.”

  I gave him the address. He said he and Walker would be there, but he didn’t sound as if he had a fire under him, and I didn’t trust him. So I did the only other thing I could. I called my mother. Unfortunately her voice mail picked up. Without giving her any but the barest details so she wouldn’t panic over Silke, I left a message asking her to send in the troops as soon as she heard this. If I was wrong about my instincts, I didn’t care anymore. Silke was in danger and I couldn’t let my ego get in the way of saving her.

  Jake had slept like the undead. Something had awakened him, but he wasn’t quite sure what.

  It felt as if he’d been on the move forever looking for his mother’s maker, when it had been in truth less than a decade. A decade since his mother had decided she’d had enough, that as much as she loved him, she couldn’t continue living like a ravaging animal.

  And, Jake suspected, she hadn’t wanted him tied to her any longer.

  He had, of course, refused to leave her, to start a life of his own. Not when she’d needed his protection. He’d covered for her and had protected her when she’d slept from the time he could put two and two together. She’d always wanted what was best for him, and in the end, he feared she’d thought it best if she was out of his life for good.

  But she’d been all he’d ever known. He hadn’t had anything to live for but to seek justice by destroying the undead creature who had turned her.

  He’d traveled from country to country, city to city, alone. Always alone. And just when he thought he would be alone forever, that there was no one on this earth who could challenge him, who could surprise him, who could, most of all, accept him as he was, along came Shelley Caldwell.

  Detective Shelley Caldwell…just his luck to fall for a cop.

  Cops had rules, and in his world, the rules were all twisted. Shelley didn’t understand. She didn’t want to. He couldn’t blame her. But he couldn’t help but yearn for what he’d never had—a true relationship with a woman. With this woman.

  He was used to taking what was offered and then going on, not involving his sex partners in his mess of a life, fearing one of them might get caught up somehow and be turned into another creature of the night.

  But he wanted Shelley for more than sex.

  Laughing at himself—kn
owing that Shelley thought he was a freak—he picked up his cell to check for messages. His gut tightened the moment he heard her voice.

  And when she got to “I’m starting at Desiree’s,” he swore loud enough to shake the foundation of the building.

  Waiting only to make sure there wasn’t more he needed to know, Jake grabbed his clothes and shoes and dressed his naked body as he flew down the stairs.

  Fear drove him.

  Shelley wouldn’t stop until she got to the master, and then she would descend to her own personal hell.

  Shoving on sunglasses to protect his light-sensitive eyes, he drove like a madman, which he was. He couldn’t let it happen to her. He could give her up if that’s what she wanted, but he couldn’t lose her this way.

  So when he got to Desiree’s and the door was locked, he didn’t let it stop him. With one powerful kick, he slammed the panel practically from its hinges.

  Knowing Desiree would be compelled to answer, he used the high-pitched tones that no normal human could hear. No one but Shelley, it seemed.

  A moment later Desiree joined him in the parlor, careful, of course, to stay away from the windows, where the last blush of light innocently threatened the room. And her.

  “She’s not here, chéri.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “‘She’?”

  “Whichever sister you’re looking for.”

  Then Shelley had been here. “What did you do with her?”

  “No harm came to her. I sent her on her way.” Desiree stared at him and stepped close, sniffing the air around him. “What are you?”

  One vampire always recognized another, but Jake wasn’t a vampire. His heart still beat blood through his body. He was alive.

  “I’m someone trapped between two worlds.”

  Desiree blinked and though she couldn’t possibly understand, in a way she must, for she said, “I sensed you to be different from the first….”

  “I need to know where Shelley went.”

  “She seeks her sister.”

  He knew what that meant. “Where is the lair?”

  “If I tell you, he will have me destroyed.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll destroy you myself,” Jake threatened, stepping closer. “And trust me, Desiree, as fast as you move, I can follow. As strong as you are, I’m stronger.”

  He expected to smell Desiree’s fear, but he didn’t. He sensed something different from her. Approval?

  “You will see that he is stopped?” she asked.

  “Or die trying.”

  She told him, and Jake was gone before she’d finished her sentence.

  Wild images whirled around me: fire and swirling smoke…distorted figures…thump-thump, thump-thump…Silke struggled frantically, bindings tearing into the soft flesh of her wrists—

  I gasped and blinked out of the momentary trance, Silke’s terror filling me. “Silke!”

  Hauling the duffel bag with me, I pushed away from the car toward the building. My twin was here. I could feel her. Panic welled in her, and I was having trouble breathing. As much as I wanted that backup, I couldn’t wait for it to arrive. I pulled out my cell and called Norelli again.

  When he answered, I asked, “Where the hell are you?”

  “On the way. We got caught in traffic. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “I can’t wait that long!”

  I told him how to get inside and down into the tunnels. Not knowing where I would go from there, I prayed that was enough for them to find me.

  Once inside and down to the basement, I headed to the elevator but followed tracks leading to the other side of the room and around a corner I hadn’t noticed before. I saw a door barely visible in the darkness. It opened easily and I could see stairs going down. I decided to take them, thereby avoiding the mechanical noise that would alert the killer. The stairwell was long and steep and choked with dust. I waited until I got out the lower door to stop, to breathe deeply and to concentrate.

  Silke, I’m here. Help me find you.

  Her thoughts were muddled, but somehow I managed to follow them, this time taking the left branch of the tunnel.

  I had a lump in my stomach and another in my throat. This was it. I knew it. I was not only going to find Silke, but at last I would also come face-to-face with the murderer.

  A second turn and I heard a splatter along the tunnel floor, as if someone kicked broken concrete. I psyched myself for trouble, if that was possible. My holster and the duffel bag were open, the disparate weapons ready. I held the tac-light—now attached to a baton—in one hand, a can of Mace in the other.

  I stepped cautiously forward, my heart thudding against my ribs. This time I had followed procedure and still I was going it alone.

  Where the hell was backup when I needed it?

  Suddenly, my light picked up a familiar form as he walked toward me.

  “Well, if it isn’t Hung Chung,” I said sarcastically. “You left the bar without saying goodbye.”

  “I’ll say good-night instead. Permanently.”

  “Deal.”

  I whipped the baton around and whacked him in the face. He seemed startled. And then majorly pissed off.

  With a loud yell, he came for me, swinging and kicking in best martial-arts style. I danced backward and slashed at him with the baton—leg, body, arm—but then he got a lock on the weapon and yanked it hard. Not wanting to let go of my only light source—not to mention a weapon that could be turned against me—I went spinning and crashed into the tunnel wall, falling on my butt.

  At least I was still hanging on to the damn baton.

  Chung came directly for me. I was still recovering, so I did the only thing I could under the circumstances.

  I held out my other arm and, aiming for his face, squeezed my trigger finger. He yowled as he sucked in the stream of Mace. I closed my eyes and even held my breath for as long as I could so I wouldn’t be affected. I didn’t want to open my eyes until the pepper spray had settled, so I blindly released the handcuffs from my belt, rose and plunged forward. My shoulder hit him hard in the chest. He toppled over, taking me down with him. Just in case he had more left in him than I imagined, I cracked open my eyes and punched him in the neck with my knuckles, not hard enough to smash his trachea, but hard enough to stun him into thinking he couldn’t breathe.

  Gasping for air now, he threw his hands up to his throat as if they could relieve his distress.

  “Thanks.” I clipped one wrist with a cuff, and made sure he was still breathing. He deserved not to breathe, not after what he’d done to Raven and Thora and LaTonya. I didn’t want to think about what he might have done to Silke or I would be tempted to kill him with my bare hands.

  Instead, I rolled him onto his face and yanked that arm behind his back. “Give me the other hand or I’ll break this one.”

  He swore at me and clawed at the tunnel floor, as if trying to escape, but he would be fighting the effects of the Mace for a while. I planted my knees solidly in the middle of his back, grabbed the flailing arm and mastered it.

  Click.

  He was mine.

  I flipped him onto his back. Grabbing the tac-light, I shone it in his face. His eyes were squinched and tearing, and mucus ran from his nose and spittle from his mouth. The fluids dripped down onto his shirt and the gargoyle pendant he wore.

  “My sister—where is she?”

  He began to cry and slobber and mutter to himself.

  “C’mon, Chung, I know you have her. You didn’t kill her like the others, did you?”

  “No,” he wailed. “No, I won’t.”

  At first I thought he was answering me, but then I realized he wasn’t even here anymore. He was in some other world. A real loony-tune. Then again, what murderer wasn’t? And at least I had him. But he wasn’t going to talk, not for me.

  I slid off him, pulled a long plastic cable tie from the duffel bag and used it to bind his feet together. Primitive but effective. The only way he could get that thing
off was to cut it, an impossibility as far as I was concerned.

  I stood and concentrated on finding Silke. When I sensed her presence somewhere nearby, I sighed with relief that she was still alive.

  “I’ll be back for you, Chung,” I said. “Or maybe someone else will find you first.” If backup ever arrived and managed to find this tunnel.

  I shouldered the duffel bag—not that Chung could do anything to it with his hands behind his back, but I wasn’t about to get sloppy now. Picking up the baton, I felt something sticky on my hand. I flicked the beam over it and realized my hand was smeared with blood.

  From what? I hadn’t wounded Chung.

  I flashed the light over him one last time and caught sight of twin holes on his neck. Several sets, actually. No blood there, though.

  The maze of tunnels in this direction proved to be as intricate as the first route I’d taken. The difference this time being Silke. I was honing in on her like a bloodhound with a scent. I didn’t let my guard down, though, not for a minute. For all I knew, Elvin Mowry and his followers could be around.

  Those holes in Chung’s neck bothered me, though. Holes like those found on the two dead homeless men. I hadn’t seen anything like that when I’d fought him before. And Chung wasn’t exactly Mr. Attractive. The other cult members all were.

  So was Hung Chung the exception? Or a conclusion that I’d jumped to?

  I thought about it as I picked my way forward. He had a couple of tattoos, but no gargoyles. Only the pendant. I couldn’t remember seeing the pendant before, either, and I’d been up close and personal with him.

  It occurred to me that the gargoyle could be a symbol of control, of belonging to another being. Desiree had said Chung wouldn’t bother anyone anymore. Perhaps when Chung had been with her all night, it hadn’t been the romp I’d imagined. But Desiree had denied being the murderer—I’d believed her—and she’d sent me here.

  As to the bites on his neck…

  I remembered Jake telling me that the new ones needed to feed and didn’t have control of themselves, the reason they’d killed the homeless men. To believe that, I would have to believe in vampires, I thought uneasily. For the sake of argument, I gave the possibility credence. What if the new ones had been feeding off Chung? Was this his punishment? Had Desiree given him over to the master?